Return to Alpha
by Animegirl257
Summary: Shortly after the Gospel incident, the chains on a great beast from the past threaten to be broken. So when the Gigafreeze is sought, the infamous Underking needs to be found…which is easier said than done. Now new NetSaviors, Netto and Rockman, must now both prevent the awakening of the beast, and locate the Underking, or the entire Net will be consumed. Now Beta'd by Ghost501


Chapter 1: Program Start

**I really need to get my imagination under control, or at least direct it all on one story instead of doing this. But that's not going to happen.**

**No, this is not the update to Shooting Stars that basically everyone who's watching me is waiting for. But hey, it's a story in more or less the same category, so that's nice at least, right? I have been working on a different story, but this is a plot bunny that evolved from my idea for a BN and SF cross over. Yes, it really did, as you'll quickly become to believe less and less the more you read, but I have little control over what my mind decides to spawn. Especially the one little concept that's a core idea that basically blew away all ties to the SF universe. **

**Anyway, just so you know, this will take place directly after the Gospel incident in the anime. And I mean directly after, so the other little filler episodes haven't happened for a variety of reasons. And this story won't be following the Axess plot line by a long shot and will instead follow the BN3 plot. Roughly. **

**Just think of it like an anime version of BN3, so massive creative liberties are taken.**

* * *

The room was suddenly a bit too small.

At least, that was what Wily suddenly thought when the supposedly disabled robot jerked to life. Really, it was a rather ugly thing without its hair. Bald, pasty 'skin', and soulless red-on-black eyes. At least with the green wig it looked mostly human, if more than a little eerie.

It stumbled a bit as motor control was restored bit by bit, before standing to its full height. Raising one hand, it clenched and unclenched it a few times before seeming satisfied. And then, unblinkingly, it stared down at Wily, with something that looked suspiciously like contempt.

There was no way that the AI that once existed within the body was strong enough to survive the shut-down he'd forced.

"I could easily end a human like you with even this body"

The voice was…off. It changed mid-sentence as the vocal output was obviously altered to suit the robot's suddenly different taste? When it hadn't cared or even thought about such things before?

No, that wasn't it, not at all. Even if he'd only happened to hear that voice a few times by mere happenstance, his mind came to the supposedly impossible conclusion.

"…You are…Forte?" actually, it made a bit more sense the more he thought about it.

"Correct, Doctor. I must thank you for giving me this drone to use. It is more than suited to my needs," and as if that was all that needed to be said, the shell inhabited by the Navi turned towards the exit.

"And what could you possible need a faux body for?" Wily inquired, half expecting the Navi to walk away anyway.

"…The same thing that you want, actually. Revenge, but a different sort."

"Revenge? Then why are you leaving if we both want the same thing? You are a powerful Navi and I can prevent that body from falling apart," there was a reason that the fake Gospel leader rarely did any strenuous activity after all.

"No more farces, Doctor. I know why you originally wanted me, for power and control. Even after deletion, you only wanted my power and the active bug, so you weeded out what was undesirable and left that to fade away. Except I didn't."

Wily gasped as the implication of the words hit him, "So then, you actually remember…?"

"Gospel and I…" Forte hesitated, though the physically expression of the robot didn't falter, "one of us had to return to the other if we ever met. Even if I am the only one with a 'self', Gospel is the Ultimate Program. I lost the moment that I ever attempted to surpass that. But no longer."

"You have the Ultimate Program now?" the silence was enough of an answer, "Now how does that work since Gospel is stronger, as we've both seen? No wait, it's because Gospel was a mindless beast, correct? When the Net was almost absorbed, in the chaos it must have been child's play to claim the program, and that's how you remember everything, right?"

Survival of the fittest even as the world all but ended for Navis. Clawing, clinging to life and existence like he'd always done, it only made sense that Forte would exploit the chaos and trick the reform command into reviving himself. Wily could tell even now that it would always be like that for such a Navi: unable to move on but unwilling to die.

"That's right."

An unavoidable fate since no one would ever bother themselves to try and change it. Not when Forte would kill them for trying.

"Wily,"

The man in question snapped to attention very quickly, because Forte suddenly dropping the formal 'doctor' could _not_ be good. Not when such a thing implied at least some kind of begrudging respect, but this? "What?"

"Even if you also desire revenge, what you and I want is very different. You are a very dangerous man if you were able to fracture me, even considering deletion. Who says you won't do something dangerous to my plans in the future? After all, your wish to destroy Net society does not seem very beneficial for a Navi like myself."

Forte turned his body, now towering over the elder man and staring down with those soulless eyes. Wily wasn't a religious man, but now he wondered about his though process when he decided to install red-on-black eyes that looked, in a word, demonic.

The Navi sneered, even if it wasn't well conveyed on such a plain face, "I have died twice; I don't plan on doing such a thing again."

Even as a pale mechanical hand reached out, so realistic yet lacking components like fingernails, Wily just sighed, unworried. He knew the exact pressure that hand could exert, down to the exact pound-per-square-inch, and was well aware it was more than sufficient to snap bones if need be. But...

"You still have a lot to learn, Forte."

A button was pushed and an invisible trigger flipped.

The body froze, even as Forte willed it forward. From the core program of the robot, the Navi growled, attempting to unfreeze the controls even as his access was denied for even the most basic commands. Commands that even those that hadn't forced administrator privileges should be able to at least access!

"What…?"

No, he wasn't being denied access anymore, everything had just...frozen? Yes, frozen in a lock-out state, so he couldn't even reboot in an attempt to regain direct Kernel access, or even just bypass that medium if necessary. Completely frozen..

"This is-!"

It was at that moment that the entire operating system of the Robot began to collapse. Piece by piece, the entire system began to delete itself and fall apart as the system integrity was compromised. With Forte still inside of course.

Wily watched passively as the robot spasmd, aftereffects of Forte trying to regain control no doubt. The strange, broken syllables that escaped the robot were probably meant to be curses. And then, after seizing up awkwardly, it collapsed to the ground. He knew it wasn't about to get back up ever again, even if it would take roughly a minute for the entire system and the remains of the AI to fully scramble itself enough that whatever wasn't completely gone would be impossible to recover.

"Humans are a bit more resourceful that you'd like to think," Wily stood up and tsked, prodding the machine with the end of his cane. Better safe than sorry, especially with a Navi of this caliber.

"If you didn't escape that, then I'll be ashamed of you, Forte."

Wily stood up slowly, ignoring the aching his body felt. It was a pain getting old, and in reality he wasn't going to be able to do even something like this for much longer. Plotting, planning and gathering resources and manpower, all of it was mentally exhausting. Combine that with the slow but steady degrading of his body, and it taxed the older man that he ever thought it could.

"There's still time for one last attempt," Wily told himself as he stepped over the fallen body, grumbling as his cane hit one of the outspread fingers.

He had told himself this more times than he cared to share, even with himself.

* * *

Deep in the Net, beyond where most Navis dared to venture, was a place. Most Navis, the very ones who refused to go near such a place, knew it as the Undernet. Of course, being a taboo topic, very little was actually known about the place, except for the fact that it was infested by criminals. Powerful ones that many were thankful had decided to hole themselves in the Undernet and rarely come out.

Likewise, these criminals rarely talked about the rest of the Net in a positive light, but looked on their own home rather differently. Though it was filled with roaming hoards of viruses, the Squares were Navis gathered rarely had a problem with said viruses. Outside of those places it was another matter entirely, but the near-constant danger rarely bothered the inhabitants. Viruses were nothing compared to Net Officials and their Navis, so freedom from that danger was well worth the price.

And unlike the rest of the Net, they had decided to call this place the Uranet.

"Hey…hey man, do you _really_ think you should be doing that?" a NormalNavi asked, slowly inching away from where another Navi, a Heel model, continued to prod the collapsed figure they'd stumbled across collapsed and only a short distance away from a sizable virus hoard. They probably hadn't noticed the easy prey because he'd been hidden behind one of the many, many rocks that decorated the mostly barren terrain.

"Well this shmuck should know better than to sleep in the middle of nowhere in the Uranet where any ol' Navi can come and mug him! Who does that?" the HeelNavi justified, giving the black figure a good kick, though he received no response.

The red NormalNavi raised one hand, "Uh…"

"Besides her. She's a freak," as if that explained everything. Which, in reality it did, since that was the stance most of the low-level locals had taken on that matter.

"Ohh? Just what are you two doing over there?"

The red NormalNavi flinched when he realized that a different group of Navis were walking towards them. To make matters worse, a high-ranking, blue-winged Navi led the group, striding in their direction with clear purpose.

"Nothing that concerns you and your little gang, Swallowman! Get lost all ready!" the HeelNavi spat, unimpressed and unamused.

"I don't think I will. Oh, just who have you found?" Swallowman asked, pushing past the HeelNavi like he wasn't there and looking over the downed Navi, "I've never seen this Navi before, is he one of your little group that got ambushed by some big nasty viruses?"

"Hey! Even if you're a Ranker, that doesn't mean you can get in on _my_ business!" the HeelNavi growling dangerously.

"Actually, it kinda does…" his partner pointed out, more interesting in _not_ being deleted, thank you very much

"Shut up and make sure his cronies don't interfere!"

The NormalNavi looked at sizable group before him and backed up a bit, "…I'd rather not."

"They won't have to do anything, it's not like you're going to be a real problem, right? Or does a rat race Navi want to challenge a Ranker, and the freest of all birds at that?" Swallowman asked, all but oozing confidence.

"Why you-" the HeelNavi paused, finally taking the situation in fully, and realizing just how horrible outmatched he was. Growling some rather colorful phrases he hissed, turning so he didn't have to see Swallowman's smirk, "Whatever you freak, fin-head here doesn't even have any good programs on him, so he's all yours."

The kick that'd been meant to accent the HeelNavi's point was, unexpectedly, caught. Slowly, mechanically almost, the once-collapsed figure lifted their head up, not once letting go of the boot even when the purple Navi attempted to pull back. Red eyes narrowed as the black Navi inspected the small crowd.

Forte was not at all happy. Not in the slightest.

To say his day had been crappy was a horrible understatement, and being outsmarted by a _human_ was just the icing on the cake, never mind actually being rendered unconscious for a short time by said human. Now there was no easy way to interact with the physical world, no way to proceed with any of his plans, everything was ruined!

Forcefully, Forte pushed away the Heel model, who almost backed into a winged Navi, and stood up. His cape had apparently been lost in his hurry to escape sure-deletion, but that was easy enough to conger once more. Now feeling properly dressed, he looked over the lot before him and assessed them, quickly feeling less and less impressed.

"Where am I?"

The HeelNavi huffed, "Think you're hot stuff, don't you? Well I'm not telling you a-"

Forte was extremely low on patients and did not feel like dealing with these types of Navis. So he casually backhanded the Navi with enough force to send him skidding a decent distance away. Ignoring the shocked cries, the black clad Navi stepped forward, peering up at Swallowman, waiting, "So?"

"It's alright, I was about to put him in his place before you decided to wake up. But you're a bit outside one of the Uranet's main Squares. Now, I've never seen your face around here, so why don't you tell me who you are."

Forte ignored the demand, "Uranet? Do you not mean the Undernet?"

"Oh?" Swallowman smirked, "It's been a while since I've heard this place call that…Topsider."

"What are you talking about?" Forte asked, ignoring the way that the foreign term had been said in a way that just screamed trouble.

"What I'm saying is…" the blue Navi leered down at Forte, leaning a bit closer to emphasize their height difference, "We don't really like outsiders here, law of the land and the like. Especially ones that show up so soon after the Uranet was almost deleted. That's rather suspicious, isn't it?"

"Get out of my face," Forte deadpanned.

The blue Navi smirked, and leaned even closer, "No, I don't think I will. In fact, you should be the one who backs up and then you should leave right now before something bad happens to you."

"You should not threaten me. It won't end well for you," not when Forte was more than happy to take out his mounting anger on the first Navi that aggravated him.

"Threat? Well I guess you could see it like that, but really I'm just giving you some advice. You probably don't know what a Ranker is, Topsider, but do know that only the best of the best can become even Rank 10, and I happen to be Rank 6. So you really should know your place and run back to your human, you -"

Swallowman stopped, and choked.

Forte glared up at the shocked Swallowman, twisting the Dark Arm Blade impaled in the blue Navi's gut around a bit, "I would _never_ enslave myself to a human. You would do well to remember that."

Then, mercilessly, he ripped the energy blade out, shoving Swallowman so the Navi didn't collapse on him. The blue Navi didn't fall, but instead hissed as he stumbled back, clutching the gaping wound shut, biting back obvious cries of pain, "B-Bastard…don't this this will be enough to delete me!"

"Then I'll just finish this now," it was foolish to stand in defiance like that, when Forte hadn't even dismissed the Dark Arm Blade. If the other Navi though he'd have the advantage of the skies, then he'd quickly realize how wrong he was.

"S-S…Swallowman!" someone shouted.

"Wait, don't-!" the Navi in question tried, but it was too late.

Forte almost sighed when he realized that the band of other Navis were converging on him, even after seeing their obvious leader almost taken out in one hit. Bold, and most of all, stupid.

The first Navi was dead mid-air, the Dark Arm Blade Forte had already had ready driven clean into the Navi Symbol on his chest and shattering it on contact, along with the Navi's body. The next had the sense to at least grind to a halt, however awkward it was considering it's oversized and blocky body. A white-gloved hand was raised in its direction.

"Hell's Rolling."

The bulky Navi wasn't deleted on the spot and instead knocking back, not about to get back up. However, the other Navi that'd been trying to sneak up on him was deleted by the second Hell's Rolling Forte had fried into seeming empty space; the Navi's invisibility not at all fooling Forte. The rest froze in shock at the easy prey he made of them, unsurprisingly hesitating even when Forte readied his power to end them as well.

It was surprising, however, when Swallowman dived into the black clad Navi, hurling him back.

The NormalNavi screeched when Forte crashed into the rocks feet next to him and his stunned partner. This at least shocked the HeelNavi out of his dazed state, who jerked with a yelp of his own.

Forte quickly emerged from the rubble, completely unfazed by the dirt and dust kicked up. A glance at the pair of Navis was all he could be bothered to do before he took off once more; throwing himself and another Hell's Rolling at the recovering Swallowman

"We…we need to get out of here. This is insane," the NormalNavi trembled, wincing as two attacks collided and exploded with enough force to shake the ground, "If," when, "Swallowman loses, who knows what that guy will do to us?" he swallowed.

The HeelNavi nodded, ignore the way his head was throbbing, "Right, and we still have a job to do later. Come on!"

Swallowman hit the ground painfully hard, curling around the wound in his stomach. Trying to move, to fight was agony and almost impossible, but it wasn't as if his opponent cared, especially with the way he'd been shot clean out of the sky. A shadow passed fell over the blue Navi and he groaned, forcing his eyes open.

"I'll be taking your power now," Forte declared, a Darkness Overload crackling menacingly in one hand.

"You…you would have never beaten me if you hadn't pulled such a dirty trick. If you hadn't done that, the surely I would have-Gah!" Swallowman shouted in pain when Forte kicked his side and injury, forcing the Navi from his side to his back.

"You still would have lost, I knew you were weaker the moment I saw you," crackling energy contained only by sheer willpower was brought held mere inches from the blue Navis face, "Power is all that matters in a world like this, and a weakling like you who can't understand their own power, well, there's no place for you."

"I…I won't yield to you! You will never have my rank, monster!" Swallowman spat, refusing to lean away even as the white-hot energy singed his skin.

Forte brushed the insult off, "I don't want your rank; such a thing does not matter to me. And I'd delete you even if you gave it to me."

But, a moment before Forte could end the blue Navi's life, he stopped, realizing something was different. It wasn't that the other Navis had fled, he'd been aware of that but couldn't be bothered with small fry, but rather that someone new had arrived. Someone…different.

Forte looked back after a moment, and gave the one that interrupted them a glare that clearly expressed they were _not_ welcome. And there, standing on one of the taller rocks strewn about the uneven plain, was a single Navi. Slim, average height, and human-like to the point they were hardly intimating even with the higher ground and a rather angry look.

"Just what is going on here?"

* * *

**Yes, yes I am that evil (lazy) to cut off that one scene before you actually get to see anything interesting. But, that's just how this is panning out, along with this chapter being so short due to the fact that it makes more sense to have the time skip next chapter. So yes, that means no, you will not be seeing the rest of the fight for a mixture of reasons. **

**So a bit of a rushed chapter, more because I'm going on vacation….technically today in a few hours and I really wanted to get this out since it's unknown if I'll have internet for almost two weeks. So, most of this was written at 1 am, stupid mistakes are insured. If I need to, I might go over the chapter one more time, but nothing big would change in the chapter. **

**Oh, but the description for this story and the like may change, so keep that in mind. **

**As for using Swallowman, well, to be frank the official list of ranking Navis is rather pathetic, with the vast majority being what amounts to default Navis, or even ones we've seen before. So, I figured it'd be pointless to make OCs to fill those roles, however minor, when there is perfectly good cannon-fodder to use. Plus he already just lurks around, so everything fits nicely for him.**


End file.
